Six years ago, I suffered from crippling scrupulosity issues. Today, I don’t.
My symptoms were as I discussed in my old post Generalized Shame Disorder, which was based substantially on my own experiences:
Let’s be clear about how I’m using the word “shame” here. Shame is not the same thing as guilt, although many people with generalized shame disorder self-identify as having guilt issues. Guilt is a response to doing something wrong; while sometimes people feel guilty too much or guilty about the wrong things, in general, guilt is useful and healthy. Shame, however, is about fundamentally being a bad person. Guilt is “I made a mistake”; shame is “I am a mistake”. Guilt often motivates people to make amends and change their behavior; shame often doesn’t, because fixing a specific defect is much less daunting than fixing an entire defective self…
Commonly, generalized shame disorder seems to be associated with literal self-destructive impulses. Conventionally, the term “self-destructive” means doing things that have far more negative consequences than positive consequences, such as substance abuse; however, people with generalized shame disorder seem to literally want to destroy themselves. This manifests in a lot of different ways. Suicidal ideation is obvious. Some might have an eating disorder in the hopes that they can waste away until they stop existing. Some people may go to a psychiatrist in the hopes of getting medication that will cause them to be a completely different person. Some people make life choices that make them miserable because the complete opposite of themselves is the only good kind of person to be. I am sure there are others; we are nothing if not inventive.
Regardless of the preferred form of self-destruction (and most people with generalized shame disorder have more than one), the root thought is the same. In fact, if there’s anything besides “lots of shame” that defines this condition for me, it’s that: the urge, in some literal or metaphorical sense, to stop being you. It is very common for people to feel guilt about the fact that they can’t force themselves to be someone else or that they don’t want to.
I am not entirely recovered from scrupulosity. In fact, the evening before writing this post I experienced a minor relapse; I treated it promptly and was entirely recovered within a few hours. I have one relapse every three to six months, none of which last longer than a few hours. This is a level of pain I can live with.
Perhaps the greatest sign of how things have changed is that I’ve forgotten how much my shame and scrupulosity used to shape my entire life. Recently I had a conversation with a person who used to know me quite well, but who has been a distant acquaintance for the past few years. I made an off-hand comment about my self-acceptance and then they said “weren’t you the person who used to spend hours crying every day about how worthless you are?” and I suddenly realized that I don’t do that anymore.
So I am writing a sequence to explain how I recovered. I primarily intend this sequence to be helpful to those struggling with scrupulosity, excessive shame, and similar issues. However, I expect that many of the posts will be of interest to people who do not have similar issues; after all, the original Sequences were about what Eliezer discovered while trying to figure out how to create a friendly AI, and are of interest to many people who were not involved in creating a friendly AI at all. This is the index post and will be updated with links to later posts as they come out.
scarlettcat said:
I have never heard of this syndrome and I’m glad that you are recovering. I might suffer from it to some degree. It will be mentioned in my next psychiatrist appointment
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opisaheretic said:
It’s not an officially recognized disorder. As Ozy explained in their old post, they coined it based on their personal struggles. You might be able to show the psychiatrist the post where Ozy goes into detail about it, but you can’t be diagnosed with or treated for this issue as such.
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scarlettcat said:
Oh okay, thank you for the heads up 🙂
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Michael said:
To clarify there is a real form of OCD called scrupulosity:
https://www.ocdonline.com/god-forbid
For example, in Scott Alexander’s discussion of scrupulosity in Untitled, he was talking about scrupulosity OCD.
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fish said:
It probably is worth mentioning if it resonates with you, but just so you know it’s not an official diagnosis. Ozy came up with based on patterns they noticed in people’s experience (including their own).
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scarlettcat said:
Thank you 🙂
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oughttobeashamed said:
I gotta wonder if the idea of a shame disorder is just something that we made up to hide the fact that there really is something wrong with us, and that we’re truly unworthy of life.
I’d like to be able to think that the level of shame that I feel is inappropriate, but I can’t shake the idea that it’s real and legitimate, and trying to feel less shame would amount to ignoring a real problem.
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Aapje said:
Considering yourself “unworthy of life” is quite extreme and it seems to me that the people who feel great shame are the least likely to commit very damaging behavior against others. For example, I don’t think that Stalin, Mao, etc felt much shame.
Secondly, as Ozy notes, shame often results in behavior that doesn’t improve behavior.
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oughttobeashamed said:
For me, at least, the point of shame isn’t to make your behaviour better. It’s to keep you from behaving at all, because everything that you could do is bad.
I can kinda recognize that this isn’t healthy, but that’s not enough to make me stop believing it.
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oughtobeashamed said:
I really am looking forward to seeing more about this, though. I think I need help with shame, and it’s likely that this will be helpful.
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Kasper Disaster said:
I am very excited 🙂
I wanted to write and say thank you for your DBT sequences from a few years back. I have them downloaded on my phone and use them frequently; I find your explanation much clearer and better connected together than therapy or other books I have read. I am using your Dictionary of Emotions post today , and continue to be super appreciative that you wrote them. Best wishes to you and yours, I hope you are having an excellent day x
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LeeEsq said:
I don’t think the author of the block quote is using shame in the way most people do. Shame is usually associated with the honor-shame system of morality where you are in the wrong if others perceive you in the wrong. It is external as opposed to guilt, which is an internal feeling of doing wrong. Basically, shame is being caught with your pants down. “I made a mistake” and “I am a mistake” are both guilt based because they are internal feelings with just differences of intensity. Shame is being made a full of deservedly or not and wanting to redeem yourself in some way. Either by doing the right thing or seeking vengeance on those that exposed you to ridicule.
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Dingus said:
Perhaps if we share Ozy’s blog posts with enough practicing psychologists or psychiatrists they will make it a recognised condition (with due credit to Ozy of course)
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PsyXe said:
I’m so glad you’ve written this, your (and others’, based at least in part on your) scrupulosity content is what got me into reading the EA and rationalist side of the internet in the first place. I used to struggle with it to the point where part of me believed that suicide was the only ethical option. It took the death of my best friend and the suicide of a loved celebrity to knock me out of that self-hate spiral (they shared with me the bit of my identity on which I focus my shame, and noticing my and others’ lack of rejoicing in their demise made me realise how irrational my belief was, plus feeling awful about them all the time displaced feeling awful about myself) but over a year later the feelings are starting to return at times. Thank you for what you’re doing Ozy, and I hope the rest of us, especially oughtobeashamed, can accept your findings and not find a way to think “that’s ok for everyone else, but not me, I’m ACTUALLY just bad”. (Hey you, yes you, you’re not actually just bad.)
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